What is the acceptable age for owning a waterbed? Then, a succinct little fable about some kind of god named the "Earth King" - who may or may not have a Swedish nu-metal band backing him - and his travails hiring contractors. This week's genre: Fairy Tales.

"The Winds, the Birds, and the Telegraph Wires" is by Revered Jay T. Stocking, and it appears in an anthology entitled "Twenty Four Unusual Stories for Boys and Girls," arranged and retold by Anna Cogswell Tyler. It nicely explains why the winds hate the birds and the birds hate wires, but it does not explain how "Birds on a Wire" failed at the box office, so there's still a lot of mystery left in the world. So curl up in your favorite rainbow bed, and grab a rainbow popsicle and celebrate like it's the Fourth of July, as we read you this week's tale.